


Dressing Wounds

by Cleothare



Category: Naruto
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guy is a Good Guy, Hurt/Comfort, I drop the f-bomb once, I hope you like commas, I might take this down as I tweak it down the road, KakaGai - Freeform, Kakashi angst, Lots of words, Panic Attack, a pinch of domesticity, and late to the game, comma comma comma comma comma chameleon, first work ever, friendship fic, general Guy taking care of Kakashi, if you squint hard, literally dressing wounds, lots of breathing, my tags will get better, oh goodness I'm nervous, possibly kakagai?, probably, so many ways to describe breathing, the majority of this takes place in the bathroom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-01-16 22:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleothare/pseuds/Cleothare
Summary: "Kakashi knew all sorts of ways to downplay his tragedies, as Guy knew all sorts of ways to hear the truth."Kakashi finds Guy after a mission gone wrong and Guy helps in what ways he can. WIPI wrote this bc I wanted more KakaGai, but (so far) have left it out of it. This can be read as a friendship fic.





	1. The Curry's Gone Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [One Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7326733) by [RockingTheGraveyard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockingTheGraveyard/pseuds/RockingTheGraveyard). 



> Hello all - long time reader, first time writer (so bear with me)
> 
> I read a bunch of kakagai fics and felt there was one trope that could always use more: Kakashi being a sad, sad nin and Guy coming to his rescue as a pillar of emotional support.
> 
> I'm a slut for Guy being Kakashi's rock. 
> 
> I might greatly alter this as I go about writing more and updating; just needed to get this out there and hope for some feedback. Also not planning on making this overtly kakagai. It will fit well as a friend-fic or a (pre)slash-fic if you are looking for some.
> 
> unbeta'd, so if any of y'all want to be a beta reader, lmk. I will take any and all applications. I just want some feedback. Did I mention that? Feedback? Feedback, feedback, feedback? Hmu on my tumblr and I will exchange with you the words.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guy makes dinner, thinks about missions and his rival, and then invites him in for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM! I did the prelude to chapter 2 (for those of you just joining us, I wrote chapter 2 first bc it spoke to me more).
> 
> Tried to put a little zing into Guy's voice, I hope it worked out.

Guy was leaning down and peering into the back of his fridge, contemplating the shelf-life of hardboiled eggs and whether or not he could still eat the ones in the back, and then whether or not he _should_ eat them. He considered the benefit and what it might do to his gastrointestinal tract - and whether THAT could be considered a good thing by anyone's standard. (Did he intestines benefit from training like the rest of the body? Guy had no idea.)  In the end, he decided to throw them out. Perhaps another day would be the day that he challenged himself to that particular feat of training. As it were, he was unconfident in his memory of when he had originally made the eggs, and it had at least been since before his latest mission out of the village, so they were at least a week old but they could have easily been far older. Guy was perhaps a little over-eager to challenge himself (and this now included his stomach) in any way, shape, or form, but even he had his limits and this was it; not after a week away from home and fresh off of a mission. 

So Guy turned away from his fridge, threw the eggs in the trash can, lamented the waste with a solitary, glistening tear, and turned to his cabinets.

"A nice bowl of curried potatoes will suffice," he said aloud, though there was no one else around. He pulled out his various trappings of a curry and scowled into the back of his surprisingly bare cabinet. _'At some point,'_ he decided, _'I will have to go on a grocery run. This will simply not do; I cannot possibly be expected to maintain a youthful vigor with only potatoes to sustain me!'_

It was not too terribly long after, as he was chopping garnish for the top of his bowl on his counter, that he felt a familiar presence fade into existence nearby. Guy had not anticipated him showing up at this moment, let alone this night, but he would have been surprised if the other had waited until morning upon his return. In all likelihood, had he not shown up on Guy's doorstep windowsill, Guy would have made his own way over to the other's, probably with some food to share just in case he _had_ returned since Guy had last checked several hours earlier. In general Guy and Kakashi made a habit of tracking the other down when they got back from extended missions.

While Guy's and Kakashi's missions were not _quite_ supposed to have ended on the same day, Guy supposed it was luck that they had. Guy had been gone for less than a week but it had been several weeks that Kakashi had been out on a particularly lengthy Transport  & Protect mission that kept getting extended. Guy had surmised Kakashi's mission had ended up maturing the way they tended to when Kakashi was involved; 'simple merchants' with 'simple wares' only wanting to be protected on their 'modest' journey usually gave way to organized criminals, assassination attempts, and clandestine affairs in spades when Kakashi was involved. (And for all Guy and the other jonin teased Kakashi about it, Guy was 100% sure that the frequency with which Kakashi's missions upgraded themselves had at least SOMETHING to do with Kakashi himself… He was some sort of magnet for trouble.)

 Guy had been between missions almost five weeks ago, fresh off of his own when Kakashi  had taken this one on. A week-long mission protecting a small merchant caravan from one town to the next big city. Alas, one week then turned into two, two to three, to four and so on. Each week approaching a "final day" of the mission that would mean Kakashi's team could go home, and each week a harbinger of another extension and a longer absence from Konoha for the team. About four weeks into Kakashi's perpetual mission, Guy was up in rotation again for another of his own. Fortunately his _did_ only last the chartered week and it was over in no time. No muss, no fuss; just your average, run-of-the-mill diplomatic bodyguarding at a few events over the course of a week. The type of mission Kakashi had actually signed up for. The most danger Guy came across on this particular mission was some overly-aggressive wait-staff who had made the most grave error of giving his target decaffeinated coffee rather than full-caff. It drove him crazy to waste his talents at light-work bodyguarding, though he respected the appearance and diplomacy involved in having a Konoha Jonin in the entourage. Guy hated it, but he did his duty faithfully.

So Guy had made it back home in one piece, full of youthful  spirit and ready to begin his training again (he had, after all, spent a week doing hardly any kinesthetics and did not want to suffer the repercussions of the limited number of repetitions he had been able to go through).  On his way through Konoha after his debrief he had taken a detour to take a peek at the windows of Kakashi's apartment in the fading dusk to see if anyone were home. If they had been lit, he would have altered his course immediately and dropped in. Unfortunately, they had been as dark as they had been for weeks, so Guy moved on.

Now it was clear that Kakashi had done the same on the other end and decided to swing by. Guy wondered if he had been back long - or rather, if he had been back longer than a quick debrief. As was procedure (extenuating circumstances notwithstanding) Kakashi would have kept the Hokage up to date on all of the developments of his mission as they happened. As such,  usually the debriefs were, well, brief. Only when missions went terribly awry did debriefs take longer than a few formal minutes with the Hokage or an aide. Guy himself had only been seen by an aide this afternoon to report that all went well. The unfortunate side-effect, however, of a mission that has been lengthily extended tended to be that the mission report required more explanation than most.

At any rate, Guy was pleased that his rival was back in town and equally pleased that he had stopped by just as he was finishing his curry.

Guy traipsed over to his living room window and opened it to allow for someone to pass through. He felt Kakashi's chakra lingering just outside and stepped back to let him pass.

"Rival!" he said to the air, not seeing Kakashi immediately. "Come in! I have made curry - and enough for ample servings for the two of us!"

Kakashi did not immediately appear at these words, and Guy frowned. Sometimes, as much of a dog-person as he was, Kakashi was as finicky as a housecat. Guy supposed that perhaps opening the window and gesturing for him to come in was not the best way to actually persuade him that 'in' was what he wanted. Despite the fact that he had come to Guy's apartment on his own. And had hovered outside his window. And had announced himself by undampening his chakra signature in a clear 'I want to be let in' manner. Kakashi didn't move a muscle, as if he were on the verge of flitting away without having said a single word.

Undaunted and thinking that _'Two can play at that game,'_   Guy took a step back towards the window, said "Ah, well, in that case…," and went to close it. As he started pulling the pane down, a gloved hand jerked into view and stopped him, clutching the frame from below. Guy grinned, _'just like a cat,'_ he thought to himself. He relinquished his hold.

Guy wandered back into the kitchen, confident that Kakashi would find his own way through the window, now that Guy had made the choice for him.

"I hope you like potato curry, Rival," he threw over his shoulder, walking up to his cabinet and pulling out a pair of bowls and utensils. He didn't hear Kakashi come into the kitchen, but he kept talking as if he had. "I'll be honest, it's not the best base for one of my curries, but it _does_ contain AMPLE amounts of carbohydrates for the jam-packed energy that youthful ninjas like we need!" Guy grandly and performatively doled out spoonfuls of his concoction into the two bowls and whipped around to place them dramatically on the table in the center of the room.

He grinned radiantly and posed to accentuate the curry, before glancing up at Kakashi and taking him in in an instant.

Kakashi was a mess. His normal, standard issue jonin uniform was nowhere to be seen. Instead he was wearing just his black undershirt, sleeves rolled up, and unclasped vest on top. His plain pants were the same as they always were, as was the mask he wore over the lower half of his face. He was covered head to toe in a light layer of dust and debris that only came about after scuffling in close quarters during battle. This was accentuated in some areas by light scrapes and scratches; he'd clearly caught himself in a fall or slide and lost some skin along the way.

Guy noted the parts of his arms that were bright red from these less-serious scrapes and the few tell-tale signs of deeper injuries: dried, maroon blood along his arms and a trail that once dripped along his temple. He saw the red cakes under his fingernails and deduced there would probably be blood along the cuffs of his rolled-up sleeves, likely rolled primarily to hide the stiffness and dullness that accompanied dried blood; a slight color change that tended to unnerve after awhile of wearing it around like a badge of honor -- or shame. This was also a hint that Kakashi had used his chidori at least once in the recent past which Guy knew tended to leave Kakashi drained in more ways than one.

Guy took a moment to absorb the state is rival was in and a brief side-thought to lament that the hot curry on his table would now have to wait and would get cold; Kakashi needed someone to tend his wounds. Primarily he needed someone to coo and tsk appropriately, which was why he came to Guy. Guy doubted he would ever admit it out loud (especially considering that Tsunade was Hokage and was somehow always listening), but Kakashi suffered from an infuriating condition of Hospital Hatred. Not quite nosocomephobia - not with the sheer quantity of times Kakashi had been laid up in Konoha Hospital beds after particularly arduous fights - such a tendency simply made a real phobia unsustainable in the long run - but certainly a compulsion to go elsewhere for help when it was manageable. Plus, Kakashi was well-equipped to handle his own wounds. Guy personally though he lacked other outlets in his life where he might garner unfettered affection of the likes of simple _'what a shame you've been wounded, I wish you didn't have this inconvenience_ ' cooing over scrapes, and the empty _'you cheeky thing, getting a bruise like this; you take too many risks'_ tsking over the rest. Fortunately, Guy was always happy to oblige.

Guy eyed his steaming curry and the table setting for two once more and wished it longevity since he certainly wouldn't be eating any time soon; Guy had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stand by my assertion that Kakashi is more like a cat than a dog. I mean, I'm all for 'porque no los dos,' but: Tell me the cat scene didn't feel right in your bones. I dare you. ;P


	2. Fortune is Blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rival! You must get medical attention!" Guy put forth his usual enthusiasm. He was beginning to suspect something else was going on than an ill-placed cut, a desire for mothering, and mission exhaustion. Kakashi seemed a bit too dispassionate for it to be his run-of-the-mill attention seeking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo - two chapters!
> 
> I kinda went out of order on this update and did the prelude first. You may have already read this chapter in the past week, but I made a number of changes to it. Hopefully it flows a little better. 
> 
> [Sidenote: I have a horrible tendency to write like the Medieval-1900 French authors I spent years reading and writing, so buckle up for beautiful sentences that would make Nabokov and Hugo drool. I am probably never going to change. I'm not even a little sorry, tbh. I do, however, have the PERFECT adjective/adverb for everything in this chapter. ;P Take comfort in that. ]

"You're hurt," Guy said aloud, finally. He gestured to the trail of dried and drying blood running along Kakashi's right forearm. It looked like it betrayed something deeper than a scratch or scrape like on his elbow, but probably nothing terribly serious - certainly not so if Kakashi had been able to ignore it up to this point. Say what you might about his tendency to underplay his own injuries, Guy had never known Kakashi to willfully ignore a truly threatening injury off the battlefield or once the mission was over. 

In response, Kakashi blinked his one visible eye owlishly before pulling his arm forward and tilting his head to have a look himself.

"Hmm," he responded after a few prolonged seconds of silence, "so I am…"

It was the sort of languid, detached response that Guy might chalk up to Kakashi showing off under normal circumstance, however nothing about his appearance was 'normal,' so Guy doubted it were so. 

"Rival! You must get medical attention!" Guy put forth his usual enthusiasm. He was beginning to suspect something else was going on than an ill-placed cut, a desire for mothering, and mission exhaustion. Kakashi seemed a bit too dispassionate for it to be his run-of-the-mill attention seeking. 

"Ahh - no. No, really I'm fine. It's hardly a scratch. I can patch it up myself when I get home…" Kakashi's words died off a bit at the end, almost as if he regretted saying them and was trying to swallow the ending as he said it. It was unlike him and it was almost enough to make Guy put the screws to him right then to find out what was actually going on. Fortunately/Unfortunately, Guy was also more used to this genre of trepidation in his friend than he liked, so he knew he had to play this out carefully. Kakashi might not yet realize all the reasons why he'd shown up on Guy's doorstep, but at this point Guy had begun to figure it out.

"Hmm!" Guy hemmed, making a display of playing the fool and looking Kakashi up and down. It might not be what Kakashi thought he needed, but Guy knew better - and if he were honest with himself it usually cheered the man up whatever the circumstance. "Well, if you won't go to the medics then I suppose I'll have to patch you up myself! After all, that's what Eternal Rivals are for!"

Kakashi looked equal parts quietly relieved and theatrically put-upon. Guy supposed this was a win; it at least meant he was attempting normalcy. Normal was good.

"Guy, really it's fine." He said. "I only stopped by to say hello; I hardly need a wet-nurse…" Guy thought it was a valiant effort on Kakashi's part to play it off, but there was a brief flicker of anxiety that crossed Kakashi's face and a slightly elevated tenor in his voice that contradicted his words. Even more reason for Guy to be suspect.

"Yet a wet-nurse you shall receive!" He bellowed. "What kind of Rival would I be if I were to turn you away in your hour of need!? How could I look at myself in the mirror knowing that I had abandoned you when it mattered most!? How could I justify such petty ruthlessness even if it were to better my odds of winning our next challenge!? Hardly a challenge I would even desire to take, since it would meant the dishonor of taking advantage of your weakened state! Truly I would be ashamed if I were to do such a thing! Why - " As Guy continued his tirade he carefully manhandled and crowded  the other man out of the kitchen and towards his bathroom. Kakashi hardly put up a fight, but made some weak protestations which Guy quickly put to rest. "Rival; at the very least I would be a terrible host to ignore your injuries as my guest…!"

All things being equal, it was clear to Guy that Kakashi was not badly hurt but Guy suspected he would not have come to him were he entirely unscathed from his most recent mission. Guy had an inkling this was the sort of thing that Kakashi probably felt coming a mile off and had somehow had the good sense somewhere in his subconscious to seek out his friend rather than tough it alone. It warmed Guy's heart that Kakashi trusted him enough to come to him for help, but even more so it ignited a small fiery pride in Guy's bosom that Kakashi had managed to (albeit clumsily) asked for help. He was normally so stoic that getting him to admit to anything bothering him was like wringing water from a stone.

Guy cajoled the two of them into his bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet to pull out his modest first aid kit. Well, modest by his means, though he'd been told before that it was 'overkill' and 'a little over the top.' As if he, the Great Blue Beast of Konoha would do anything half-heartedly, let alone try to make due with a first aid kit suitable only for civilians who might primarily injure themselves while gardening. (Not that Guy had anything against gardening, and in fact considered himself somewhat of an horticulturist with his herb garden on his windowsill.) Nevertheless, it would suffice to say that Guy's first aid kit was well-equipped to handle anything from upset stomachs to doling out stitches and remedying a few of the more common poisons.

"You sit here, Rival," Guy motioned to the toilet next to his sink. (Like any true, youthful gentleman, Guy's toilet lid was closed despite the fact that he alone used the toilet with any regularity.) Kakashi sat and Guy got to work.

"You'll have to remove your gear," he said to Kakashi, who began to do as he was told. _Unusually quiet and not argumentative_ , Guy thought. _I'm afraid this is worse than I thought…_

Guy winced a bit himself when Kakashi ever-so-slowly removed his shirt and revealed the extent of his 'hardly a scratch'. The cut ran almost 5 or 6 inches from the collarbone to the shoulder cap. It looked as though it were on the line between needing stitches and needing a good wrapping. It was not very deep, but too much movement would aggravate any healing that might occur and prolong the lifespan of the wound. It certainly had bled a lot more initially, but the tide had stemmed, as it were, and it had slowed to a standstill. Rather, it _had_ slowed to a standstill until Kakashi had gone to remove his clothes and field dressings, at which point it had begun to lightly bleed again.

"Rival!" Guy chastised absentmindedly, "This is not hardly a scratch! This is a cut, and a deep one at that!" Guy quickly decided to take advantage of the pliable state Kakashi was in and the fortune that he was bleeding again to thoroughly clean and dress his shoulder. He retrieved a washcloth and soap and lay out the gauze and bandages.

"We'll have to first give everything a decent cleaning," he said. Guy knew that Kakashi knew this, but he felt it needed saying. At the very least Guy tried to make a habit of announcing beforehand one way or another that he was about to invade Kakashi's space; the other man seemed to be more receptive to touch if he knew it were coming.

"Ah," Kakashi said, "I think I may have been grazed here as well." He gestured with his left hand to the right side of his face, under the mask.

"Well, then, let me take a look," Guy replied. Internally Guy smirked. It had been years since Kakashi had taken to occasionally removing his mask when the two of them were together, but he still had the irrepressible need to justify removing it in his presence. Guy suspected he felt the need to announce the arrival of his jawline to the show based on the reactions it seemed to emit in those that saw him. Either that or he was still embarrassed by it, by the attention his all-too-like-his-father's face got him, and perhaps by his now dependency on security blanket of a mask. Guy suspected it was the latter, but knew Kakashi liked to pretend it was the former.

Slowly and painfully Kakashi pulled his mask up and over his head. He _had_ been grazed, too. Starting a few inches below his ear and trailing up behind it. Guy surmised it was the kunai from his shoulder glancing off and up the side of his head.

"Looks like you narrowly avoided a kill-thrust…" Guy mused gravely. The attacker had somehow gotten close enough to Kakashi to go hard for his jugular but had made the mistake of hitting his shoulder first. Kakashi had clearly either dropped and twisted to send the blade up his head while stationary, or had used the other's momentum against him as they thrust and accomplished the same thing. Either that or he had been incredibly lucky and his foe had made a mistake. Kakashi generally made his own luck, in Guy's experience, so he supposed that was the case here.

That being said, Guy was a little astounded Kakashi had permitted someone to get so close to him in the first place. Kakashi tended towards long-range combat and clones unless he was going in for a final blow. To have someone dangerous get so close was either recklessness or ineptitude, and Kakashi had never been inept.

"How did they manage to get a drop on you worth this!?" He said, a little more venom than he liked and a lot less than he felt was warranted crept into his voice. He scowled down at Kakashi.

How _dare_ Kakashi be so reckless? Guy knew Kakashi hated Guy's Gates because he hated his sacrificial plays, which _he_ called reckless. While Guy could hardly blame him for his fears, he could certainly feed his own rage and frustration that Kakashi could so rashly lead himself to the same foolhardiness he criticized in others. This wound was the type of rookie mistake that got people _unexceptionally killed_. Guy made no mistake that it was Kakashi who set himself up for this; these were the sorts of mistakes that someone with as much experience as Kakashi  should never have made. Things like this were instinctual at this point in their lives.

In response to Guy's bitter question, Kakashi eyes unexpectedly took a distant look and he almost imperceptibly flinched. It was a minuscule thing that was only visible to Guy's eye; Guy's eye that had grown used to watching and interpreting every look on Kakashi's face from behind a screen.  Guy's eye that could read things on Kakashi's face he might not even know he was telegraphing. Guy could read Kakashi like a book with or without his mask on, with or without his pretenses. Guy saw Kakashi flinch and instantly knew he'd hit a nerve, and an instant after that knew he'd made a mistake. A silent moment stretched on. Guy hoped that Kakashi might do as he was want to do and ignore the comment; pretend it never happened and pretend that Guy hadn't just eviscerated him just a bit. Guy hoped, but knew it would not be the case. It never was.

As if from a dream - perhaps more aptly a nightmare - Kakashi blinked slowly and returned to Guy as he said:

"I… was… preoccupied and distracted." He paused as if his words were not their own condemnation, then continued, "…and I was suddenly outmanned."

It was an innocent enough answer, but Kakashi knew all sorts of ways to downplay his tragedies, and Guy knew all sorts of ways to hear the truth. He was stunningly blunt in his way. No pretense or lie in his words, and as Kakashi was not one to speak in platitudes any more than he was willing to come straight out with an answer, Guy found this response unnerving. Just another clue to the type of trouble into which Kakashi had gotten himself on this mission.

'I was suddenly outmanned,' he had said, which Guy took for what it was: Kakashi had lost another mission partner this evening, and then lost himself and gotten reckless. This was likely when he had used his chidori, if Guy's suspicions about the blood under his fingernails were founded; They usually were. Fortunately for Kakashi, his instincts remained; a cruel gift from the double-edged sword of ANBU training: instincts like a wolf, but enough casualties that you pay for every iota of instinct with a little more of your sanity. Fortune's wheel granted Kakashi his life tonight, but Guy knew what it looked like to watch his friend's position on the wheel descend to the bottom, and he was witnessing it again tonight.

Kakashi had lost a teammate and had probably felt it as he tended to feel every loss: echoing back through the years until he was taking on deaths that were not even his to take: his father's, the Fourth's, Obito, Rin. Guy saw the flinch and heard his words, and knew that Kakashi hadn't shown up at his window for first aid; he hadn't show up for camaraderie, for curry, or even for a challenge (how Guy wished he might one day challenge him instead!). Guy knew he'd come by for his company in fighting his demons and in fighting the rising tide of fortune lost.

 

This was going to be a long night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't know, the Wheel of Fortune was not just the TV show. It's the (Greek) concept that the Goddess Fortune literally has a wheel that people (souls, etc) are tied to along the rim. In the versions I am familiar with, the lower half/third/section of the wheel is underwater. The thought is that Luck is cyclical and you might be on top, but you will descend to misfortune and in the allegory be drowned (by your bad luck). Check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_Fortunae
> 
> So icymi: Kakashi was fortunate to have held on to his instincts/training which saved his life, however the double-edged sword is that now he is descending from his advantageous place on the wheel into the water of bad fortune/suffering.


	3. Fight or Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guy cleans some wounds and observes Kakashi struggle to regain his balance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOT DANG, CHAPTER 3
> 
> Guys, I am powering through this! (she says, screaming to the Void, because no one else is listening at this precise moment)
> 
> I keep thinking that The Breakdown is going to come 'in the next chapter' but I keep getting caught up in all these delicious details!

Not knowing what else to do with this realization, Guy set to work on Kakashi's wounds. Watching Kakashi's face out of the corner of his eye, he brought the dampened cloth to his shoulder first.

Kakashi didn't react to the new pressure. Instead, he seemed to fade away into himself as Guy worked. Worried, Guy kept cleaning out the wound and rinsing his washcloth, contemplating the situation he was in. Kakashi was steamrolling his way to a breakdown, of this Guy was certain. What mattered was that he had made it to Guy's before it got bad.

Guy remembered the last time Kakashi had had a bad mission like this, and it was… less than ideal. Guy had been indisposed that day and hadn't been there when Kakashi had come out of his debrief. Eventually Guy had gotten the message from the Hokage's office that Kakashi was back after a "Hard Mission Success," which was some sort of morbid code that meant a mission had succeeded at a loss of life. Guy supposed it sounded better than calling it a "Mission Success" with an asterisk marking the dead names at the bottom. Small mercies. Of course, upon hearing this news, Guy knew his rival would need his company and he had set out to find him

After everything had calmed down, Guy put together the day's events and realized that without someone to look after him, to remind him that he was still alive and that there were still people worth living and fighting for, Kakashi had (let himself?) spiral into depression and wound up at the memorial stone. Guy found him there hours later, trying to… well, he had either been trying to awaken the sharingan or trying to pull it from his head. Guy liked to tell himself it was the former; that Kakashi was trying to awaken the eye to give himself more prowess on the field in order to protect his companions better. Guy thought it was probably the latter. How many times had Kakashi mentioned to him that his sharingan gave him picture-perfect memory and recall? Funny that it was 'Obito's eye' when it was saving people in battle, but 'Kakashi's eye' when it was doling out punishment in perfect images of the lives he had taken or had to take. Those he could not save. Guy knew it was the latter.

On that day Guy had wrapped Kakashi in a hug as much to remind him he was needed as to pin his hands to his sides lest he keep trying to… do whatever he had been doing. Kakashi hadn't really struggled. He had heaved a sigh that almost sounded relieved, relaxed his shoulders a bit, and Guy had seen his eyes go from squeezed shut to relaxed, but closed. He'd pulled away roughly after that moment. Something like "sorry" had been on his lips before he'd squirmed from his grasp and fled. Guy had given him a few minutes before following at a slower pace. Guy had watched him to make sure he made it to his apartment with no problems, and had set up a post a few rooftops over to keep an eye on things overnight. Guy didn't know what he had expected; that Kakashi would go back to the stone again? That he would invite him in? About halfway through the night, several hours later, Kakashi's light had gone off and his silhouette had appeared at the window. He'd reached up to the window to close it, before looking around. Guy knew he had seen him when his form froze.  Kakashi had stayed there, still, for less than a minute before closing the window all but a few inches and turning away. Guy had taken it to mean that he was a welcome presence, but he had better not get close. He was good at reading Kakashi between his words, so he had spent the night watching over his fragile rival. The next morning Kakashi had thrown the window open and placed a cup of tea on the windowsill while sipping his own. They never spoke about it beyond a brief, wordless exchange over the tea leaves. Guy was not one to shy from discussing things like this, but Kakashi was a different matter, and Guy respected him enough to trust him to deal with himself.

This, though, was uncharted territory. Kakashi had weathered his own storms for almost as long as Guy had known him, but something about tonight was different than Kakashi's few brief lapses in his tight self-control. The man in front of him was not about to be helped by a tight hug and a sentry by his door, keeping his monsters away. He had a distant-but-frantic look about him. He looked as though he were expecting someone to jump out from every corner.

Content that his shoulder was adequately cleaned and dressed, Guy moved on to his head wound. Noticing how on edge Kakashi seemed, he made sure to telegraph his movements. He gently put his hand on Kakashi's head to pull it to the side and give himself better access to the cut. As he did so, Kakashi violently reached up with his left hand and ripped his hitai-ate off. He tossed it on the floor, near the pile of bloodied clothes in the corner. Guy made very sure not to move while Kakashi did this. He was moderately concerned that if he did anything wrong or unexpected Kakashi would retreat and Guy did not know if he could find him if Kakashi didn't want to be found.

Kakashi stared at the pile of discarded clothing and hitai-ate with disgust but did not move to stop Guy or remove his hands. Guy took this as consent and brought the towel up to his skin. Guy noted that Kakashi was using his sharingan to scowl at the pile on the floor that was clearly offending him. Guy presumed that Kakashi was too on edge to feel comfortable keeping his guard down and needed to use both eyes to feel safer. He did not take offense, despite the fact that his apartment was certainly the safest place Kakashi could have been outside of the Hokage's office. How many times had Guy come home from his own rough mission and been unable to stop himself from jumping at every sound of the house settling? How often had he set up some innane traps and snares at his windows and doors so that he could finally, _finally_ sleep? In comparison with some of the things Guy had done, using the sharingan in the bathroom seemed downright reasonable.

Guy bandaged the cut and moved on to the abrasions on Kakashi's arms. Kakashi seemed hardly to notice except to straighten his head back up. Guy noticed his breathing was tightly controlled. It was the sort of breathing they'd been trained to do when stalking or hiding. It was supposed to be silent enough that you would have to be listening specifically for it or with chakra-enhanced hearing to know there was someone nearby. It was, coincidentally, the best way to calm yourself down and grant a modicum of control to the adrenaline spikes on the field. Guy frowned a bit. Perhaps this was going to come to a head faster than he thought.

He was turning Kakashi's arm over to get a better angle on the graze when he was startled by an outburst of sharp movement from Kakashi. In the blink of an eye Guy was deftly pushed aside and Kakashi was standing in his place. Looming over the sink, hands tightly clutching the edges, he scowled into the mirror. There was rage and disgust in his eyes as he stared down his reflection, brow tightly furrowed. It looked like the face of a man about to go to battle. Scornful.

Guy, who had also backed up out of the way as Kakashi had moved, was watching this from the doorway. He didn't have to try very hard to see what was going on in Kakashi's mind. He was coiled tight as a spring, so Guy let him be, waiting for his moment to intervene again. Some things Kakashi had to do himself, and as much as Guy wanted to help, he knew Kakashi needed to reach his own conclusions before they continued patching anything up.

Guy watched as, ever so slowly, small microns of tension left his shoulders and neck. His brow slowly unfurrowed and eventually the silent, brooding Kakashi who had shown up in his apartment was all that remained. His taut muscles had loosened such that they were no longer twitching and trembling. His hands, however, had not. They still tightly grasped the edges of Guy's sink with a fervent desperation.

Kakashi seemed to notice this at the same moment that Guy did. His gaze dropped to look at his hands, on either side of the floating sink, white-knuckled with strain. Guy watched Kakashi as his eyes took both hands in, then as they slid over to his right hand. He seemed to be dissecting every detail of his hand as if he had never seen it before in his life. He seemed to be aggravated by its mere existence. Guy realized with a shock that he probably was; his hands were still unwashed, as they'd been when he had come by Guy's window. The dark flakes of dried blood were still lodged in his cuticles and under his nails.

"Kakashi," Guy said quietly, loathe to break the silence and spook the man, but certain he had to intervene. "You should wash your hands." Guy gestured to the faucets and held out the bar of soap.

As if it had never left, silence fell again and no one moved for a long moment.

Kakashi appeared to have to fight very hard to tear his eyes from his hands and ply his left hand off of the rim to accept the soap. The look in his eyes, which kept darting back to his stationary right hand, didn't make it look like this was the small victory Guy had thought it would be.

Guy stepped in to turn on the faucet, trying to meet Kakashi halfway when he was clearly struggling.

"Kakashi..?" Guy asked. He let the unasked questions hang in the air for a beat: Are you with me? Can you hear me? Can you wash your hands?  When he got no response he moved in, reaching across Kakashi from the left to gently peel his fingers from the sink. He led his hands down to the warm water.

With the water running over his hands Kakashi seemed to come back to himself. Suddenly aware of how uncomfortable the situation might be - though it hardly mattered to Guy -  Kakashi pulled his hands gently from Guy's and began to wash them with heavy deliberation. He suddenly seemed perturbed by the presence of Guy's hands. So, Guy pulled away and watched with poorly hidden concern on his face.

"I'm fine, Guy," Kakashi said. He sounded like his normal self, tutting over the overzealous affection Guy usually proffered, and laughing-but-not-laughing in his words. "I know how to wash my own hands!"

 Guy was skeptical that Kakashi was as fine as he claimed. Was this the moment that Kakashi would retreat to lick his wounds in private? He seemed to have fully snapped back to his normal self in an instant, and Guy eyed him for any signs of prevarication.

"Anyway, your dinner is getting cold," Kakashi continued, coolly. "You can leave me to it. I'll clean up this mess." He nodded towards the discarded clothes and gauze on the floor, and resumed washing his hands with a little more vigor. His next line was almost nonchalant:  "It's the least I can do. I'll just clean my hands first..."

Guy watched the scene unfold before him for a moment, contemplating Kakashi and his odd phrasings and intonations. He had paused between words in a manner that belied a double-meaning. As if he were having a second, more grim conversation to which he were responding.  _'You can leave me to it; I'll clean up the mess... It's the least I can do... I'll just. clean. my hands. first...'_

Kakashi was running, there was no doubt about it. He was retreating inside himself before he let too much go or let too much get to him. Guy wasn't sure what to do. Had he done what was needed? Given Kakashi a safe and quiet place to recover his wits enough to take care of himself? If so, what was this dread in his stomach? Guy knew he processed things differently than Kakashi. In this situation Guy would prefer to not be alone, but Kakashi might. Guy was hard-wired to talk things out, but Kakashi preferred to internalize things and break them down that way. Guy was worried, though, that Kakashi didn't so much deal with them as tuck them away and ignore them until they came to a head. At this point, above everything else, Guy was just worried that he could do more harm than good if he insisted Kakashi stay as if he were to let him leave. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! I tried to wrap it up a bit to a nicer, somewhat natural ending (all I do is end with Guy worrying, hahaha). 
> 
> Next update will probably be this weekend. <3


	4. Bated Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hot diggety dog, this one was so hard to write. I am so sorry it took so long. I kept working at it and the words would just. not. come.
> 
> I hope I finally did it justice. 
> 
> There is one more Wrap-It-Up chapter in me. Something to bring it all back to normal and "okay" again. Be strong.

Guy decided to hedge his bets and take his cue from Kakashi. Intending to spur him into betraying what he needed, Guy shifted his weight where he stood towards the door. It was a subtle thing, implying he was about to leave, something that Kakashi would certainly pick up on. Guy turned to the hand towel hanging on the hook by the sink, his back to Kakashi, and dried his hands as slowly as he dared. Then, once more he shifted this weight towards the door.

He did not go. Kakashi, as Guy was sure he would, had noticed his body language and had, as Guy had hoped he would, given himself up. Guy had been prepared to leave. He had steeled himself that he might walk back into his kitchen and leave the other man alone to tend to himself. However, the moment Guy had first shifted, Kakashi had responded by even more aggressively washing his hands. In a perverse way it was almost comic how angrily and frenetically he was going about the task. The bar of soap was picked up and rapidly abandoned in the basin of the sink over and over again as soon as anything resembling a lather showed up on his hands. His hands, of course, were well beyond clean at this point, but Kakashi seemed to be clinging to the task as if it would save him; Anchor him if Guy _were_ to leave.

Throughout this ordeal it was not lost on Guy that cadence Kakashi's breathing took had shifted. His collected breathing from before was disappearing. Slowly Kakashi's breaths hitched and became progressively more shallow. He could not take the deep, slow breaths he had earlier, and was left anxiously taking halting, shallow gasps that only got worse as the seconds wore on.

By the time Guy had finished drying his hands and shifted towards the door again Kakashi was breathing so raggedly that Guy was frankly impressed Kakashi's willpower was still somehow holding him together.

Guy had not looked at Kakashi or tried to eye what he was doing while he had his back to him, but hearing the uneven breathing taking him prisoner, he finally turned around to take the other man in.

Kakashi clearly was at the end of his rope. His eyes were blown wide with... fear? Guy was fairly certain that the electrified look in his eyes probably had more to do with his adrenaline and anxiety than fear at this point, but fear was what it looked like. Fear such as Guy hadn't seen on Kakashi's face in a long time, probably since they were children.

His eyes were roving, taking in anything within view, likely in an attempt to gain some sort of visual purchase to tie him back in the present. As Guy turned back around they jumped to him and lingered. Guy was struck by the desperate, pleading look in them, and almost forgot where they were; safe, in his bathroom, and taking care of each other. To see Kakashi's eyes so unguarded and intense had thrown him off-balance, and his own reaction was the instinctive and immediate memory of the times he had seen this look in the heat of battle and a rush of protectiveness bursting through his veins. It was strongly reminiscent of Kakashi's Coup de Grâce look. The one he took on when he was delivering his final, electrifying blow.

Guy knew Kakashi disliked using the chidori despite it's usefulness, but he had never surmised quite how vehemently Kakashi hated it until now. It almost physically pained Guy to realize that his rival had so long been using a skill that would rend him apart as much as it did his victims. Over and over throughout his life Kakashi had used the chidori and in all the times Guy had seen him, caught his eye in the heat of the moment, he had mistaken this look for exhilaration. How foolish. It was the look of a man no longer fully in control of what happened, but being led by the nose by his own jutsu. It was a jutsu that got the job done, but how often had it done the wrong job for Kakashi? Killed innocents or bystanders, or young shinobi who had no business being in a battle with Kakashi? People who never saw him coming, who never knew what was in store for them, or who simply didn't realize what they had gotten themselves into?

Kakashi, Guy realized, had been taking all of this in, time after time. Now Guy put together the true horror of the justu that Kakashi had once drunkenly called his 'macabre mortal blow' while waxing poetic after a long, alcohol-rich night. Mortal blow to his opponent to be sure, but also to himself. Something that seemed to take a life of it's own as it took others', leaving Kakashi with the remains around his trembling fist and a picture-perfect replay of the moment in his mind for the rest of his mortal life. Guy felt drained at the prospect. 

They had all had training - of a sort - to deal with the death of a comrade or a bystander. Fortunately enough, most shinobi who experienced someone die on their watch often didn't realize exactly how it had happened in the throes of battle. Guy himself had seen his teammates perish, and even while watching it happen, feeling as though things had slowed down, he still walked away with a memory that time would fade until he would only recall the broader strokes. The guilt remained, but the edges softened. Kakashi, on the other hand, would not benefit from Time easing either the guilt or the memory. The sharingan did not grant him that luxury. Guy paled to think that not only was Kakashi subject to these perfectly preserved memories of death, but he also had to know as he watched (and re-watched) the life leave their eyes that he was directly responsible. Everything in perfect replay any time he cared to remember his traumas.

Guy had not fully pieced together the terrible power of the sharingan until now. Now that he had, it sickened him and made him angry that he hadn't noticed sooner. What kind of friendship was he offering if something like this had escaped his attention? He suddenly felt very small and insignificant like he might as well be standing at the edge of the ocean throwing rocks into the sea to stem the tide.

Kakashi's eyes slid back to his hands, the sink, the soap, the mirror - and Guy took this opportunity to step back into the fray. He purposefully and gently stepped back into Kakashi's space and brought his hand up to Kakashi's back. The moment his palm touched his skin, Kakashi twitched in a barely-contained jump. He twitched at the initial touch, and then froze like he'd been caught in the act; some instinctive primal response for when neither fight nor flight were an option. The soap he had dropped in the sink; the water was running over his fingertips, forgotten. He held himself on baited breath waiting for Guy to say something; _do_ something.

"Kakashi - " Guy started. But he didn't know where to go from there. He was at a complete loss of what to say, how to ease Kakashi's burden and somehow simultaneously apologize for all the times he had never noticed. Guy was not one to shy from the insurmountable, though, so he took a deep breath and trudged on:

"I'm… I'm sorry… Kakashi," he said with heavy severity. It hardly scratched the surface of the depth of feeling and regret Guy had, but it was as good as place to start as any. The effect on Kakashi was immediate. The words had barely passed Guy's lips when his (admittedly dubious) composure crumbled.

Kakashi began to tremble and breathe falteringly -  his high-paced breaths from before had been somewhat constant and consistent, but now they shifted to something altogether out of control as if trying to overcompensate from the horror-frozen moment prior.

"Not you!" Kakashi said. It was an accusation. His eyes pinned Guy where he stood, reflecting off the mirror. He began to shake his head, slowly and tentatively at first, but gaining fervor and speed. He gently began clenching and unclenching his fingers with nervous energy. "You can't say it too. Don't say it too; Not you. _Not_ you. No!"

Guy understood at once and added his word choice to his long list of regrets this night. He should have known Kakashi would not respond well to that phrasing when he was already seeing ghosts.

Naturally, Guy knew of Rin's last words; the faint whispering of "Kakashi--" as she died, unceremoniously wrapped around Kakashi's unprepared hand. Guy knew, too, of at least several other times that Kakashi had gone for the kill as an apology slipped past the lips of whatever traitor or enemy they fought. It was likely a trigger in and of itself to hear those words bearing the finality of death, and he berated himself for his lack of consideration.

"Not me," Guy said. He brought his other hand up to Kakashi's shoulder, grasping him with both hands and gave a little squeeze. "Not me, Rival, no." He tried to infuse his voice with all the care he could. Apologies were not important at the moment; convincing his friend that the world, that _he_ , was safe was.

It took a split second of hesitation, but Kakashi decided to believe Guy. A small amount of tension bled from his body and, as if it had been this tension holding him all together all along, he began to shake from his bones.

Kakashi took a deep, throaty breath and seemed to force it out. Something not quite a groan but neither a sob wrenched itself from his lungs. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force a normal breath, but quickly opened them when - Guy assumed - he was once more assaulted by unsavory images. With that final feint unsuccessful, he seemed to resign himself, and sent a fleeting, desperate glance in Guy's direction before finally, _finally_ letting go.

Guy caught Kakashi's eye but could do no more than watch and try to slow the descent as Kakashi's hyperventilating brought him quite literally to his knees.

"I - can't. I can't - do - it. I just - they keep - they - _keep_ \--!" Kakashi was blabbering. His damp hands came up to his temples and he grasped his hair roughly as if he were trying to squeeze the life out of his rampant thoughts and memories. Words were tumbling out of his mouth in staccato, punctuated by sharp intakes of breath, one or two at a time. Kakashi's eyes seemed to be focusing on the mid-distance; looking at nothing and a singular spot on the base of the sink at the same time. He was getting nowhere with his words, starting a sentence and changing structure midstream. Guy tried to glean what he could - though he already had a handle on the situation - but Kakashi did not make it easy, spouting mostly incomplete thoughts and flitting to the next as they occurred to him. It was as if his mouth could not keep up with his mind, and it was likely an accurate description. With the way he was breathing, Kakashi was not going to be getting enough oxygen and would likely pass out from panic.

"No mat- - no matter what - I - - it - it's always - the - same -" Kakashi was getting nowhere with his stumbling words and Guy didn't know what the sharingan would subject him to if he were to pass out. Itachi had been able to subject him to 3 days of torture in as many seconds and Guy was not about to wantonly risk what foundation might remain of Kakashi's mind. If there were one thing that could more cruelly hurt Kakashi than 72 hours of torture, it would be 72 hours of torture by a mind that knew his own weaknesses intimately. Kakashi's mind evidently had had plenty of experience and knew how to efficiently destroy itself. Guy was not about to let this battle be taken to that point tonight; if Kakashi were intent on destroying himself it would be a battle fought not in his mindscape alone, but on Guy's turf. So Guy did what Guy did best (second-best, but only because his curry truly _was_ fabulous), and anchored Kakashi:

"Rival," Guy said, and he brought his hand to Kakashi's upper arm. On par with much of the evening, Kakashi didn't outwardly react except to swing his eyes over to Guy's hand, curled around his bicep. "Rival, you have to breathe." Guy stared Kakashi hard in the eyes and tried to get a line to him. To his credit, Kakashi's eyes reflected a desire to do what Guy suggested, but his body did not respond. Guy hardly anticipated it would; not without guidance.

"Match me," he said, purposefully taking long, slowly-drawn breaths and urging Kakashi to mimic him. "In," _breath_ , "out," _breath,_ "in," _breath_ , "out," _breath_. Very little headway was made, but it was more about there being a model for Kakashi to strive towards than actually matching his breathing to Guy's. Eventually, after what felt like hours of partial, panic-stricken words against the backdrop of Guy's voice, low and steadily repeating "in… out…" like a metronome, Kakashi was able to fit some single and some coupled gulps of air in between his hiccoughing breaths. That was enough to convince Guy that he no longer needed to narrate his own breathing, and it was enough that Kakashi was able to start speaking with some coherency.

"It's them -" he said several quiet minutes later. His hands, having somewhere in the mess of struggling to relearn how to breathe properly been brought down to his lap, were white-knuckling his knees. He swallowed heavily before continuing: "They're there; they come back... _Again_. Every time I -" His voice faltered, and stopped altogether.

"Every time you are forced to use your chidori against someone." Guy asked as much as stated. He knew it was not the kindest way he could have framed the thought, but he had to know and he suspected Kakashi would probably appreciate not having to actually _say_ what he meant.

Kakashi hesitated, then nodded grimly. His jaw was clenched tightly enough that Guy absently wondered if he were going to break his teeth. Kakashi's in- and exhalations were now audible through his nose, and significantly slower; he was no longer in any danger of short-circuiting his brain through lack of oxygen alone despite the few trembling breaths here and there. Guy took this as a quiet step in the right direction, though he knew they were far from out of the dark 

"Not just then, though," Kakashi added as an afterthought to his nod. His voice took a somber and tentative tone, like he was surrendering and betraying someone at the same time. "I…. sometimes… like tonight… Sometimes it's just when someone ... on the team… when they die." He paused. "I don't even have to be the one that… because I still am. I always am."

Guy furrowed his brow at this a bit.

"How so?" He asked.

A bark of cruel laughter bubbled out of Kakashi at that; Sad and wrapped up in self-deprecation.

"I'm cursed, Guy." Kakashi sounded resigned. "Death takes a personal interest me and those around me." Guy didn’t like where this was headed, but held his tongue to see where Kakashi would take this. "I'm either killing someone that doesn't deserve to die, or -" he swallowed as if he needed the split second to gather his courage to say this out loud, "or someone is jumping in front of something intended for me, as if _I_ somehow am more valuable than them. As if _I_ am worth saving but they are not…"

"Is that what happened tonight?" Guy asked, though he knew the answer. "Did someone make themselves a shield for you?" There was a beat before Kakashi spoke, and when he did it was an answer in itself.

"I… I don’t think I can do this anymore, Guy." The confession was barely above a whisper. Guy paused before responding.

"I know," Guy said simply. And he did. He had perhaps been blind to the extent to which Kakashi had been slowly picking himself apart over the years, but he had known on some level that this profession of theirs was not something they would ever gracefully leave. They were bound to reach a point eventually that they could not go on. Maybe that time would happen on the battlefield, but more likely, now that they had lived this long, enough to be legends of their own, they would retire eventually. Once their pasts caught up with them they would stop and live the remainder of their lives with their demons for company. They were all careening towards a breaking point where they would no longer be able to do this anymore, constantly being tempted to stop at the pass when they felt a particularly large part of themselves sacrificed to the darkness inside them.

"But I have to." Kakashi sounded heartbroken and subdued. For a moment Guy thought Kakashi was going to weep, but he watched as Kakashi tamped that down and stored it away somewhere for later.

"I know." They all had to. They didn't become and stay ninja because it was easy on them; they stayed in the game because it was what they knew how to do. It was what they could do to protect their village and it was what they were good at. It was a duty, and as often as they might sacrifice bits and pieces of themselves and their sanity to the cause and hotheadedly or desperately consider dropping it all and running for the hills, it was never really an option to leave.

 _"Fuck,"_ Kakashi said eventually.

"Yeah," Guy said, fully understanding and recognizing that feeling in himself. "I know what you mean."

Guy shifted and moved from sitting on his feet, which were going numb at this point, so he was fully seated on the floor, back leaning up against the bathroom door, legs crossed. Kakashi took this moment of shuffling fabrics and silence to do the same, keeping his feet on the ground and resting his elbows on his knees, hands hanging limply over his feet. They sat there in heavy, but somehow still comfortable silence, waiting for the blood to flow back into their limbs and their thoughts to gain some focus and clarity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a line with thoughts or whatever! You give me life. 
> 
> ((I think I left the water running... oh dear. XD ))

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6913303
> 
> Whose beautiful, beautiful angsty-fluff made me think about how many people have died on Kakashi and how that probably rips him apart and how Guy *would* be his rock. So yeah. I almost cried when I read it. *heart-eyes*
> 
> \----  
> Primarily inspired by: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7326733
> 
> Which I basically rehashed in parts and pieces because I go weak in the knees for one person taking care of another when they kinda check out.


End file.
